


Together We Are Ghosts

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Choking, Frottage, Frotting, Hand Jobs, Hannigram - Freeform, Longing, Lust, M/M, love in a church, sex in catacombs, what am I even thinking anymore?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:20:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: Hannibal pressed his body against Will. Will felt heat and hardness of Hannibal’s desire against his thigh, and he knew Hannibal could feel him in kind. He lowered his lips and kissed Will on his mouth and then over his face and forehead. “You knew where to find me.”“You knew where I would be looking,” Will managed weakly.Or, the one where Hannibal and Will do it in the Catacombs of the Norman Chapel in Palermo.





	Together We Are Ghosts

Will found the Norman Chapel in Palermo precisely as Hannibal said it would be when he had described it, once upon a time, in front of a Baltimore fireplace on a snowy evening.

Had he searched for God, Will might have caught a glimpse of the Divine One in the gilded arches and statuary throughout the sanctuary; but his mission was of a single mind and did not include a visit to the Almighty.

He smelled his own sigh as it returned to him against his palm. Stale breath rose from his discontented belly. He caught a leftover bite of gin and he nipped at the thick pads at the base of his fingers. Alone in his hotel room the previous night, he had indulged in several martinis and a lovely plate of cheese and fruit brought up by room service. Thin slices of apple flanked thick slices of brie. He’d consumed it all, even the skin of both fruit and cheese, then he’d ordered another drink. He’d ordered them to leave the bottle.

Bleary eyed, he’d spilled more drink down his throat and fallen on his bed into dreamless sleep.

Now he attempted to catch images of Hannibal from the past in places they had never been together, but in memories they might share at some future moment. It was a weird way to live, if he stopped to think about it. If he didn’t stop to think, it was just the way in which he’d learned to move in the world.

Votives in red jars offered a warm glow to tourists and parishioners alike, assurance that for a small fee, their prayers were known.

But Will was not there to pray, nor was he there to admire scenery or the ornate design.

Hannibal had not mentioned the catacombs as part of his memory palace, and yet they felt familiar to Will as he descended. They gasped around him like a ghastly set of lungs, aching with breath of the grave, stale as his own. They seemed a place he’d been to many times in a story of childhood. The dank air and darkness almost comforted him.

Deep below the church, deep below the streets of Palermo, lay a maze of shadows. Following only his map of intuition, and led by the compass of his emotion, Will wandered. The skeletal remains of friars, bishops, and monks leered at him by flickering candlelight.

“I know you’re here,” Will whispered, his voice shaky and tentative. He slowly inhaled the cool air. Above ground, Palermo was soaked in a warm, golden sun of spring, but in the catacombs, Will could almost see his own breath rise up; the shadow of a ghost. In a slightly louder and more confident voice he called out, “Hannibal.”

Then he was there.

He appeared as a specter in the constantly moving candlelight. He spoke not a word. He stood, shoulders squared, arms by his side, staring stonily at Will. One moment it seemed his lips puffed in a pout of displeasure, then the next it seemed they curled in a sideways smile. His eyes were set, onyx slits.

The impression Hannibal could disappear again at any moment gripped Will like the hand of death.

Will extended an arm, palm up, much as he would to one of his stray dogs to test whether or not it was fierce. Will blinked and felt cold air of the catacombs bite at tears that had gathered in his eyes.

For several, long moments they took one another in. Hannibal still did not speak, but he took another step toward Will.

“I came,” Will said. “After everything, I still came.”

Hannibal stepped into Will’s space in a sudden manner that made Will realize he’d craved it all along, the heat of his touch, the violence of their connection. Hannibal put his hands around Will’s throat and shoved him back against a stone wall with surprising speed and strength. Will turned his head and closed his eyes. He smelled Hannibal’s breath. It was rich. It was buttery, filled with wild herbs, and the tang of garlic. He smelled the spicy complexity of Hannibal’s cologne and the salt of his sweat. Hannibal’s hands constricted around his neck. Deprived of air, Will could not hear himself sob. He barely felt his tears as they streamed down his face and onto Hannibal’s hands.

Will would die. He absorbed this fact.

He would die beneath Hannibal’s hands. He would die inhaling the way Italy scented Hannibal. He found he did not mind dying so very much. Hannibal’s breath seasoned Will as though he were a sacrificial lamb, but he did not bleat. He did nothing to fight it.

Could he have spoken, he would have whispered through a small smile that he gladly gave up the ghost to the God who towered over him now, to the God he’d found after all, though he’d not come here looking for God at all.

Beneath the burden of dead he dragged on his back, Will had no strength to retaliate. He gave himself over to Hannibal’s hands.

When Will was moments away from losing consciousness, he felt Hannibal release his grip on his throat. Will collapsed in Hannibal’s arms, imagining the amethyst array of bruises he’d wear as a necklace for days, maybe even weeks. Hannibal’s arms, strong as ever, held him, though his body begged to collapse on the floor, to be left among the mummified holy men. Hannibal would not allow such mercy. He held Will in his arms, strong as ever, until Will’s arms could disobey no longer, and they came around Hannibal.

They clung to one another, in the chill and damp. Apart they were half dead. Together they made a heart beat. Hannibal pressed his lips against Will’s and breathed life fully back into him.

Still Hannibal said nothing. He kneaded Will’s neck with his fingers and pressed his forehead against his. Will could feel Hannibal’s forehead furrow beneath his own skin.

“I’ve stopped dreaming,” Will muttered. “Actually, I hardly sleep at all anymore. I close my eyes and beg my brain to sleep that I might dream of you, but you elude me. Always.” Will’s voice broke in a ragged cry. Hannibal bit Will’s lower lip and sucked into his mouth like the slinky flesh of an oyster. Will grabbed at his head, his neck, his shoulders, anything that would give him purchase so he could deepen the kiss, so he could bite back and suck the elusive flavor of Hannibal back into his own marrow.

“This is not how I imagined our reunion,” Hannibal said at last. His voice was new and yet it was the same. “However, it is more than I could have dreamed. Us. Here. Among these bones and bodies.” His voice was exactly the same, rising and falling like a song in the shadows. As he spoke the dead seemed to rise up around them to paint the rough, porous walls of the cave with their stories and sorrows. Their spirits wove in and out of the shadows leaving stains on the air in their wake. Will felt it and he shivered. “Mmmh, you feel it too, Will. Don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, Hannibal, I feel it, but I . . . I can’t stay. I can’t stay here.”

“Quite right,” Hannibal agreed. “I have a place we can go. I’ve been preparing for this. For us.” He stroked his fingers over Will’s face and into his hair. “I knew you would come. I knew you would know!” A boyish glee filled his words as he kissed Will’s cheeks and forehead. “Oh, it’s so good to see you. Tell me, Will, tell me it’s good to see me too.”

“Good?” Will stuttered and huffed out a sigh that ended in a ragged cough.

“Is your throat sore? We will get some honey and bourbon for that. Come.”

For a moment, Will struggled with the desire to allow his own soul to pool into Hannibal’s. Oxygen continued returning to his brain and he was both dizzy and euphoric. It made the sensation of Hannibal’s fingers floating over his neck and through his hair all the more electric and tempting. He closed his eyes and sighed fully that he might inhale another complete breath of Hannibal. Then he muttered, “No. No, I can’t stay here. I can’t stay with you. Hannibal, this is goodbye.”

Hannibal scowled. Rarely did his face betray him, but at this declaration of Will’s, his face turned into a mask of anger and frustration. “I don’t accept that,” Hannibal’s voice was flat. He pressed his body against Will. Will felt heat and hardness of Hannibal’s desire against his thigh, and he knew Hannibal could feel him in kind. He lowered his lips and kissed Will on his mouth and then over his face and forehead. “You knew where to find me.”

“You knew where I would be looking,” Will managed weakly.

“Yes, Will. It is because we know not only one another, but ourselves most of all, through each other. There is a name for such a connection,” he placed his hand over Will’s heart and nuzzled his jaw.

Will grabbed Hannibal’s face and cupped it in his hands. “I can’t afford to love you, Hannibal,” he said bitterly through his tears. “You have destroyed me. You have ripped everything that isn’t you away from me. How can I love you? How could I love such a monster? What kind of a person would that make me? What is the word for _that_ , Hannibal?” For a moment they stared tensely at one another. “How could you do it all to me?”

“How could you do it to me, Will?”

“To you?” Will’s voice grew and echoed off the stone and bone surrounding them. “I did nothing to you but try to be your friend. I took nothing and gave _everything_.” Will placed his hands on Hannibal’s shoulders as if he would push him away, but he didn’t.

“You are so wrong,” Hannibal murmured. His eyes glinted. “You cut out my heart. You cut out my heart, Will, without even bothering to make eye contact with me; do you remember?”

“No. You hold false convictions to rationalize your deeds.” Will still hadn’t pushed Hannibal off; in fact, his hands gripped his shoulders quite firmly.

“And yet, you are here.”

“Yes. I am here to say goodbye,” Will swallowed hard and peered up at Hannibal.

A smile eclipsed the anger on Hannibal’s face, but it was almost equally as terrifying. “Oh, my beloved,” he crooned. He tilted his head to and fro so he could admire Will from various angles, each wavering and shadowed visage more lovely than the last. “Do you not yet know there is no goodbye for us?”

“What then?” Will whispered. “Only seek and destroy?”

Hannibal paused and licked his lips prior to responding. “It would please me not to destroy, Will.”

“I can’t be with you,” Will’s words came out staccato. “You’re appetites are not mine.” At this, he did push Hannibal from him, but gently with only the very minor conviction he could muster. Hannibal stood a pace away. He nodded slowly and raised his eyebrows. He put his hands in his pockets.

“And I can’t be without you, Will,” he confessed quietly. “Perhaps it means I will have to alter my proclivities that I might cleave to you more within your own tastes.”

Will took this information in and tried to read Hannibal’s expression, but it was nearly impossible in the wavering light. “You can’t be serious,” he hissed.

“Oh, but I am,” Hannibal said and stepped back up to Will. He put his hands on Will’s hips and bent his face to nuzzle Will’s neck. He nipped him gently and swirled his tongue in the little hollow of flesh beneath his ear. “Quinine,” he breathed. Will’s eyes rolled back in his head and he stifled a moan.

“Could you,” he began and groaned as Hannibal blew on his ear and let a hand wander down over the crest of his ass. “Could you stop?”

“I could,” Hannibal whispered and his hands became bolder, stroking Will’s ass in heated circles and pulling him into his obviously aroused body. Hannibal stopped suddenly and pulled back to look Will in the eye. “Would you like that? Would you like it, Will, if I stopped savaging the sheep and became a sweet, domesticated creature for you? I will. For you? I will do it.” He traced the outline of Will’s mouth with his tongue. “Would you like that? Shall I stop, Will? Would you like it very much? Tell me and I will. It will be our solemn vow to one another, here, in this sacred place. It will bind us evermore. Tell me, Will,” his breath came against Will’s face in heated gusts. Hannibal rotated his hips against Will’s and their cocks strained toward one another beneath their pants. Hannibal’s fingers crept toward Will’s belt and Will’s hands helplessly followed suit. “That’s it, Will,” Hannibal crooned. “I’ll stop. I’ll be so good for you. Tell me you’ll have me. Tell me this is what you’d like.”

Instantly, a life flashed within the theater of Will Graham’s mind. Not necessarily _his_ life, but a life. A life where he and the man who held him tangled together in secret places while storms blew beyond their doors. A life where they drank coffee in a quiet, sunlit kitchen over morning papers. A life where they could hear the wind sing and the ocean churn and no one ever had to die or mourn. He saw, in this life, Hannibal reach for his hand, in a gallery someplace and glance at him in a way that sought permission, in a way Will found to be _maddeningly polite._ It was a life in which two lives were joined, but those lives were neither his nor Hannibal’s.

“No,” he whispered but he did not push Hannibal away.

“No?” Hannibal pulled back to examine Will’s face. He found him to be smiling strangely. He’d not stopped at Hannibal’s belt and was reaching into his pants to draw him out. He ran his thumb over the sticky, wet tip. Hannibal caught his breath sharply and his eyes flickered, but only momentarily because he did not want to take them off of the man whose ministrations were making him shiver with pleasure. “You’ve not lost your touch,” Hannibal whispered against Will’s mouth.

“Because I never stopped wanting to touch you,” Will grunted, half furious, half delirious. With his other hand, he shoved down his own pants and sprang forth. Hannibal managed to get a hand down between their bodies to ruck up their shirts so they could hold each other and feel skin on skin, desire pressed urgently close together. For a moment they stood, still and close and tight to one another. Then Will whimpered, “Ohhh,” and Hannibal wrapped his big hand around both of their cocks. He pumped them against each other, with an expert, almost surgical precision. Will clung to Hannibal’s neck and kissed him, lathing his tongue through his mouth and weeping unabashedly as he felt Hannibal spurt hotly over him and he could do nothing but follow, falling over the cliff of pleasure with a desperate gasp.

They held on to one another as they came all the way down, and allowed their racing breath and hearts to slow. Then, in silence, they tucked themselves away. Will’s eyes wandered through the catacombs, wondering if Hannibal would do it here, and now. As if reading his mind, Hannibal said, “I won’t kill you.”

“You don’t need to,” Will muttered, miserable and bereft already of Hannibal’s embrace. “I’m already dead.”

Hannibal reached for his hand and threaded their fingers together. “No, Will. What you are feeling is life. The ever pressing, never ending burden of the living. Apart we are alive. Together, we are ghosts. We can disappear and float wherever we want. Be utterly free. You’ll learn.” He brought Will’s hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles. At the sensation of his lips, Will shuddered and his eyes rolled. Hannibal chuckled. “You see? You’ve already had a taste. And there can be so much more. I’ll give you some time to decide.”

“You already seem pretty confident you know what my decision will be.”

“Yes. I am,” Hannibal grinned.

“And if I chose life?”

“Well, we shall burn that bridge when we get to it. Try not to worry so much. A good decision is best made if one is relaxed, and you would do well to relax with yourself, my beloved.” Hannibal pressed a small piece of paper into Will’s palm and as Will bent to study what was written on it in the meager light, Hannibal disappeared.

Will rose from the chambers of death into the Palermo sun. He squinted and when his eyes were well adjusted, he took the paper from his pocket and saw an address penned in a familiar, flowing calligraphy. He dug his phone out of his pocket to look up the address, and noted as he did the way the warm breeze stirred palm fronds lazily against the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> I really did not mean for this to become yet another Hannigram smut fest, but it seems like these two dorks have a mind of their own. . . I absolutely live and breathe for comments, so if you are out there, please say hello. And if you have a particular Hannibal fic you would like for me to check out and comment on, please feel free to leave the title in the comments and I will try my best to get to it! I adore meeting and getting to know new friends/authors/works through this medium. xoxoxo.


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